A Different Nature

A Different Nature Mission Statement: A Sustained Explorations of New, Experimental Music and Sonic Art
A Different Nature is a curatorial program of genre-defying avant garde music and spoken word that champions historic and modern sound art and spotlights, new, emergent experimental music and audio art generally not heard anywhere else.
The program's format provides the space for deep listening to pieces not confined to pop song lengths and shows are generally focused on an artist, school of music or discipline, record label or art movement.

A Different Nature is a collaborative effort of the ADN Collective, who each curate a show every week on an informal rotating basis, or a group show, depending on the subject at hand.

A Different Nature was founded in the late Seventies by Richard Francis, who fearlessly championed new music and the unheard Avant Garde. His programs went into exhaustive detail on individual artists, labels and musical disciplines. He also spearheaded many important events on the air, such as the 2001 and 2008 Dada and Surrealism festivals that dominated the airwaves for days on end and involved many in the local avant garde community as well as many KBOO programmers.

Richard passed away in 2009 but it's our hope to carry on with his mission of introducing listeners to unheard new music as a collective of his collaborators and listeners.

Episode Archive

Over the past 1-2 years, A DIfferent Nature has presented, intermittently, a group of individual artists who made up the groups Henry Cow and Art Bears. Fred Frith, Dagmar Krause, Lindsay Cooper, and Chris Cutler--all members of one or both of these bands all later went on to other projects--either solo or with others, but tonight's program will feature the bands Henry Cow and Art Bears.

Often film soundtrack employs experimental music. Tonight on A Different Nature we go to the movies. Each hour we will hear select audio from a couple different movies from the last coulple years, not just the theme and incidental music, but also bits of dialog and some sound effects as well, taken from the actual motion picture, not the sountrack album. Whereas some movie soundtracks are an excuse to conglomerate a bunch of songs, we instead go in the opposite direction, with musical themes and dialog to create a "cinema for the ears" or "radio cinema" for an enhanced listening pleasure.

New music miniatures: the second of three programs I have put together in which all selections are less than 3-minutes in duration. Along the way we will hear music by Jorge Antunes, Tod Dockstader, Luc Ferrari, Lou Harrison, Jonathan Harvey, Meredith Monk, Moondog, Pauline Oliveros, Harry Partch, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Frank Zappa, and many others. host: Andy Hosch

For the first hour of the show we will showcase selections from some recent releases by Norwegian women artists: Jenny Hval and Susanna, Hild Sofie Tafjord, and Maja SK Ratke.

Then, the second hour features material from Hungarian composer Akos Rozmann's "Images of a Dream and Death." Originally composed in the early 1970s, we'll hear excerpts from a newer recording of this piece that was released last year on a 3 LP set.

We'll hear some of the guitar and Daxophone work of Hans Reichel (1941-2011), some Fred Frith, French-Canadian guitarist/composer René Lussier, some early work by Eugene Chadbourne (with John Zorn) and extended jamming between Sonic Youth and Jim O'Rourke.

Daniel opens a series of shows focusing on the tradition of West Coast composers, innovators and downright mavericks.

Including the originators of what came to be known as the "West Coast School" -- Beginning with HENRY COWELL, considered to be "the father of West Coast experimentalism" and who taught many others (including John Cage) to throw aside convention in composition in music, as well as LOU HARRISON, HARRY PARTCH, JOHN CAGE, PAULINE OLIVEROS, TERRY RILEY, this series will also look at the continuing tradition in succeeding generations of avant-garde and experimentalists from the American West Coast; (Amy Denio, Thollem McDonas, Henry Kaiser, Mike Lastra, and many more will be explored)

ALSO: A SPECIAL LIVE PERFORMANCE by THOLLEM!

Tonight's show concludes with a 36 minute pianistic exploration/performance by the redoubtable THOLLEM MCDONAS, LIVE on the KBOO piano!

Dr. Zomb of Dr. Zomb's Stereo Obscura and Rich of Radio Lost and Found interview Negativland founding member Mark Hosler.
Mark called in all the way from North Carolina to discuss Negativland history, their upcoming show in Portland on the 29th, their upcoming new album It's All In Your Head and other mysteries.

This time on A Different Nature, we delve into the program's past, and play gems from founder Richard Francis' own record collection. It's KBOO's spring membership drive, so A Different Nature listeners will have the opportunity to pledge their support for the station during the program. We have special thank-you gifts to offer new or renewing members: copies of the CD "Hendrix Uncovered: New Music Inspired by Jimi Hendrix", donated by March Music Moderne & Bob Priest.

For forty years, the San Francisco Avant-Garde band The Residents have basked in relative obscurity, much of it self-imposed. Their earliest modus operandi had them creating works under their 'theory of obscurity', first coined by N. Senada, who may or may not be an actual person. One aspect of the theory is that a work is created with the intent of never releasing a work until every participant has forgotten about it - or something like that.

Another aspect of the Residents is that they've kept their real identity a secret for many decades, with a few people speaking on their behalf in a business capacity who may or may not be Residents themselves.. Hmmm..

We did, however, manage to get Homer Flynn, The Resident's creative director and visual Major Domo on the phone, while he was, uh, helping the band on the Eastern leg of their Wonder of Weird 40th Anniversary tour.

Homer was more than generous with his time and lots of questions get answered, including a long-time rumour around KBOO's history.

Kathy, Dr Zomb & Rolf interviewed Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots for A DIFFERENT NATURE. We conducted the interview at the Doug Fir a couple hours before they performed and aired it on ADN that night. Also thanks to Crystal for digital audio editing before the interview aired.

On 03/05/12, on A Different Nature, we looked at the Electro-Acoustic and Electronic Music works of Japanese composer Matsuo Ohno.

Born in 1930 in Kanda, Tokyo. Studied sound effects at the Bungaku-za theatre troupe and at NHK, before becoming a freelance sound designer, sound effects creator and electronic composer. Famously, Ono created the electronic sound effects for the "Astro Boy" TV show (1963).

Fascinating stuff! Ohno can almost be seen as the Japanese counterpart to the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, in that he created the sounds and strange musical cues for the animated Japanese cartoon Atom Boy, better known as Tetsuwan Atomu in Japan, originally created by cartoon legend Osamu Tezuka.

Better knows as Tetsuwan Atomu in Japan, created by cartoon legend Osamu Tezuka

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New Sound of Astro Boy

The World of Electro-Acoustic Sound and Music - 1

Various sound effects from Astro Boy, introduced by Matsuo

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Electronic Sound - Astro Boy's B.G.M.

The World of Electro-Acoustic Sound and Music - 1

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Universe is Born

I Saw The Outer Limits

Originally released as Space And Maryjuane Trip Is Same in 1972 on Toho Records, it was reissued in 2011 as I Saw The Outer Limits on EM Records and on the compilation The World of Electro-Acoustic Sound and Music vol. 2 on King Records

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A Brief Tour of the Solar System and Interplanetary Space

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A Slightly Longer Tour of the Galaxy and Interstellar Space

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Extragalactic and Intergalactic Space

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Pulsation

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N-Dimension

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Mandala

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Extracosomos, Gazing Beyond the Horizon

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Melody of Space-Time

Memory In The Beginning

Composed by Matsuo Ohno in July 2004 at Kyoto.,

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Innocence is Born

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The Chaos and The Light

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Yamatoji A

The World of Electro-Acoustic Sound and Music - 1

Tape piece built from Ohno's own recordings of bonsho and Tibetan recitations. First appearance: Video Disc "Yamatoji" (Dentsu Inc.)1982.

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Yuragi - Fluctuations #2

The World of Electro-Acoustic Sound and Music - 1

In collaboration with dyeing art and butoh dance, 1991, edited in short version November 2004.

Tonight's A Different Nature was a preview of March Music Moderne, a month-long series of concerts and events happening at venues throughout the area. March Music Moderne is the brain child of Portland composer Bob Priest, who joined us in studio to discuss this madness. /// host: Andy Hosch

A look at some early Electronic, Electroacoustic and Musique Concrète from the likes of Vladimir Ussachevsky, Daphne Oram, Frederick Charles Judd, Henri Chopin and more, by way of the wonderful Creelpolation compilation of 7" records put out in 2006 by the essential collector imprint Creel Pone.

"Bootleg CDR label run by Keith Fullerton Whitman focused on early electroacoustic & experimental recordings for research purposes. Each release is a limited fac-similé edition of only 50 with a silver foil-stamp on the crystal-clear resealable polypropylene compact-disc sleeve. 100 of these reproductions have been scheduled without "having anything to do with money but just [as] a way for pure and great art both in vision & sound to prosper and be discovered a new."
Though statements have been put on the web that this label is based in Iceland, this is completely untrue."

The first 2 hours were dedicated to 4 compositions --4 Portland area composers offering their piece in tribute to or inspired by Pandit Pran Nath

1. Air Objects by John Berendzen 24:30

2. Planetary Sine Wave Organ by Derek Ecklund 30:30

3. Referent by Scott Goodwin 24:00

4. Raindrop Garden by Matt Carlson 10:00

The last hour of the broadcast was indeed very special, even historic, as Michael Stirling sang/performed a raga live in the KBOO studios with accompaniment from Derek Ecklund and Kelly Jennings, each playing a tambura, and Aran Adams on tablas.

Here's what Michael had to say about this raga: "i dedicate my offering to Shamsudin Faridi Desai, a music family friend from Dehli who passed on 8/16 - one of the last living masters of the Binkar in the tradition of Mian Bande Ali Khan - the great Binkar of the Kirana tradition. He and sarangi virtuoso and Khalifa of the Kirana Gharana, Ustad Hafizullah Khan were inspiriations and their classical music will never be duplicated - as Terry Riley said of Faridi, a Ghandarva!

The first 2 hours were dedicated to 4 compositions --4 Portland area composers offering their piece in tribute to or inspired by Pandit Pran Nath

1. Air Objects by John Berendzen 24:30

2. Planetary Sine Wave Organ by Derek Ecklund 30:30

3. Referent by Scott Goodwin 24:00

4. Raindrop Garden by Matt Carlson 10:00

The last hour of the broadcast was indeed very special, even historic, as Michael Stirling sang/performed a raga live in the KBOO studios with accompaniment from Derek Ecklund and Kelly Jennings, each playing a tambura, and Aran Adams on tablas.

Here's what Michael had to say about this raga: "i dedicate my offering to Shamsudin Faridi Desai, a music family friend from Dehli who passed on 8/16 - one of the last living masters of the Binkar in the tradition of Mian Bande Ali Khan - the great Binkar of the Kirana tradition. He and sarangi virtuoso and Khalifa of the Kirana Gharana, Ustad Hafizullah Khan were inspiriations and their classical music will never be duplicated - as Terry Riley said of Faridi, a Ghandarva!

Program submission forms are available at the station, 20 SE 8th Ave. You can also call Program Director Chris Merrick at (503) 231-8032. This is assuming you've already gone through volunteer orientation and FCC training....